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Monthly Archives: April 2013
Blog for Mental Health 2013
1.) Take the pledge by copying and pasting the following into a post featuring “Blog for Mental Health 2013.”
I pledge my commitment to the Blog For Mental Health 2013 Project. I will blog about mental health topics not only for myself, but for others. By displaying this badge, I show my pride, dedication, and acceptance for mental health. I use this to promote mental health education in the struggle to erase stigma.
2.) Link back to the person who pledged you.
I would like to thank the author of It’s not me, it’s my OCD for pledging me and for letting me know about this initiative!
3.) Write a short biography of your mental health, and what this means to you.
It was an ordinary strep throat infection, but my body’s immune system turned traitor on me and my antibodies attacked my basal ganglia instead. I was seven years old when OCD first reared its ugly head. It wasn’t until I was in my 20s when it was finally diagnosed. For years, my family and I had no name to put to my experience except that “Jackie thinks too much” or “Jackie overthinks everything.” I worried about spiritual issues mostly: did I love God, was God real, was I going to heaven, was this-or-that sinful?
It was a long and painful journey, but Exposure and Response Prevention broke me out of OCD’s prison. Today, I am so grateful for my freedom that I am eager to share my stories with anyone who will listen.
4.) Pledge five others, and be sure to let them know!
I am pledging five of my favourite mental health bloggers:
Bringing Along OCD
ocdtalk
71 and Sunny
Lolly’s Hope
Poet’s Pilgrimage
5.) Join the Official Blog For Mental Health 2013 Blogroll.
The Simple Art of Waving
I grew up in a town of 700. Kimball, Minnesota, baby, home of the Cubs. In a town this small, there aren’t a lot of secrets. Not only do we leave the car unlocked while we run into the store, we leave the keys in the ignition and the car running! When the ambulance drives by, you follow it to make sure it’s not going to your friend’s house. Then you call everyone you know to ask what’s going on at the Johnson’s.
We also wave a lot. A lot of the farmers do the cool thing where they just lift one finger from the steering wheel, but others will honk their horns or show you their whole palm. I love it. If I’m in a small town for recruiting, even if it’s one I’m not familiar with, you can see me waving at the people I drive by. People will wave back too. It warms my heart.
At Northwestern, the incredible university where I work, people greet each other all the time. Even if you don’t know the person’s name, you nod and smile. I think part of it is being a Christian campus and part of it is just the good ol’ Midwest.
But even at my apartment building, my neighbors wave. A lot. Jim and Peg, whose patio is just to the left of my building’s front door, greet me every day with a friendly salute. And the man who lives across the hall from me will honk his horn in his big blue SUV in the parking lot and then wave at me like a crazy person. “Hello dah-leng!” he shouts in this incredible accent. “How ah yoo too-day?”
I feel blessed to be surrounded by a community of greeters and wavers. It’s like being known. It’s like having a name.
Cobwebs, then Cables
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Jealous Palm
Afterward, Silas and I had Holy Communion with Laurel on the beach: grape Crush and Goldfish crackers and Silas’s reassurances that it was not irreverent. We spread a bed sheet over the sand, which felt cold and tired here at summer’s end. A cool breeze came over the waters from the southwest so that Laurel’s hair blew out behind her like bridal veil. Silas read a poem he’d written in his Moleskine notebook:
Is she the only one to notice the way
the low orange moon walks the streets tonight,
this full satellite standing at the intersection beside men
out late, their shadows stretching behind them like secrets?
She loves the peculiar, the collision of common and celestial,
holiness networking with profanity. Magnificent absurdity,
the whole of it: God putting on skin and walking with liars,
divinity stapled to a death machine.
The phenomenon holds her like a jealous palm.
“Silas, that’s really good,” Laurel said as she leaned back on her elbows, looking out at the waves on the water.
“Really good!” I gushed.
The praise bounced right off of him. “It’s about you, Laur,” he said. He handed me the bottle of Crush and Laurel the bag of Goldfish. I felt the bubbles of carbonation burn my throat as I swallowed.
“I know,” Laurel said, then tasted a cracker, God’s body. “I am held by a jealous palm. I believe that. Right now, I believe that.” She closed her eyes, perhaps in prayer, and breathed in the scent of the breeze: algae and white clover that carried over the water onto this holy space.
Asking the Tough Questions
The Wednesday before Easter, my dear friend Ashley and I went to a performance of “Kingdom Undone,” which was showing at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis. This was a story of days leading up to Christ’s death, but the emphasis … was on Judas Iscariot.
The betrayer. The traitor. But in this play, a lover of Christ who misunderstood just what the coming of Christ’s kingdom would truly look like. A zealous believer who thought he was doing what was right, even what was needed of him.
It was fascinating. Afterward, Ashley and I could not quit talking about Judas and his role in Christ’s death, both of us eager to return to Scripture to measure our thoughts against Truth.
I want Judas to be redeemed. So badly. Mostly because I think that would make for the best story.
That alarmed me for a little bit, made me really uncomfortable. Was I imagining that I could make an “improvement” on the gospel story (if Judas was not under grace)? The gospel is my FAVORITE story. It’s like how I’d feel if someone wanted to change the ending to The Last Battle or something. (Potentially– I still have not totally landed on what I think was Judas’ fate. Although scripture does say, “Satan entered into him.” But we also do know that he regretted his choices– deeply.)
Anyway, it’s good for this obsessive-compulsive to sit with troublesome uncertainty. Once upon a time, these kinds of questions would have collapsed me, but now I’ve learned to sit with them.
…
Another of my friends emailed me this week with an unrelated faith crisis as she struggles to reconcile the (vengeful, confusing, sometimes bloodthirsty) God of the Old Testament with the (merciful, loving, gracious) Christ of the New Testament. They are, after all, one and the same. But she loves Jesus, she told me, and is pissed at the OT God and trying to struggle her way through the dissonance.
I wonder the same thing sometimes too. The Old Testament and New seem so vastly different. But I know that the Law was a tutor to lead us to Christ, and I know that the God of the Old Testament orchestrated the whole beautiful gospel from before time began, so they do flow together. I know that God welcomed Gentiles like me in order to make Israel jealous, and I am forever grateful to be a wild shoot grafted into the natural tree.
This post doesn’t have a lot of answers, and I think that’s okay. I’m learning to ask the tough questions and to sit without an answer, wait in that uncomfortable silence because God is still holy there.
Hope for the Hopeless Obsessive-Compulsive
I have been hearing from so many OCs lately who are so utterly exhausted from battling their own thoughts. One person told me she has no fight left in her. Another told me he is at the end of his rope, that he cannot survive one more spike in his obsessions. This post is for them and others like them.
There is hope.
Please hear what I am saying. There. Is. Hope.
I mean that. I wish that I could take your face into my hands right now, lean in close, and say this to you: There is hope.
I have been where you are. I have been through the mania, when anxiety was clawing through my nerves like a high-pitched dissonant chord. I have been through the disgust, when the thoughts I’ve had in my head have made me feel like a monster, feel sick to my stomach, feel certain that I was the absolute worst person on earth. I have been through the battles, when my compulsions were firing about 10 times each second in the search for some relief. I have been in the pit, when I was too fargone into the darkness of depression to be able to lift my face. I have been hopeless, feeling confident that I would never not feel this sickness, this wrongness, this terror, and this shame.
But I’m not there anymore.
Oh, I still have OCD. For most of us, it’s a lifelong disorder. But, get this, I am in control of it– it does not control me. My intrusive thoughts are rare, my obsessions manageable, and I can resist my compulsions. I am happy again. I don’t spend all day every day worried and sick over the what ifs. I have a healthy relationship with uncertainty. I’d always thought it was my enemy, but it never was.
OCD was– and is– the enemy. If you know the name of your enemy, you can fight it. OCD is an illness, a medical condition, and just like a broken bone, there are options you can reach to for healing.
Three things.
1) Cognitive-behavioral therapy, specifically exposure and response prevention (ERP). This is the preferred method of treatment for OCD and the most effective when done right. ERP is not the same as talk therapy. ERP has homework. Hard homework. But the reward is freedom!
2) Medication. This, when combined with ERP, can be highly effective. Finding the right medication is hard. But worth it.
3) Jesus Christ. My Great Physician rescued not just my mind and my body but also my soul. Do you know him?
Listen to me again: There is hope.
Take deep breaths. Your thoughts are only thoughts. And, let’s be honest, with OCD in the mix, they’re probably not even your thoughts … they belong to your disorder. Calm your breathing. Cry until you can’t cry anymore. Try your best to get a good night’s rest. Tomorrow you will begin your search for a cognitive-behavioral therapist.
Tomorrow is your first day on your journey toward freedom.
Jackie’s Book Awards
Inspired by Tara, The Librarian Who Doesn’t Say Shhh, and her end-of-the-year Superlatives Awards.
I. Books
Book I’m always recommending: Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
Best re-telling of a popular story: Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson (it’s a fresh look at Peter Pan)
Best companion book: Fire by Kristin Cashore (companion to Graceling, but it works as a standalone)
Most original and imaginative: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Biggest tear-jerker: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, followed closely by A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Like reading my own biography: Kissing Doorknobs by Terri Spencer Hesser
Most interesting premise: Every Day by David Levithan and Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Deepest meaning: The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Best prose: three-way tie between The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson and Peace Like a River by Leif Enger and The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle
Best story arc in a series: Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
Everything-Falls-Into-Place Award: When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead and HP & the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Creepiest: This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers
Best book for boys: tie between Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card and Wrestling Sturbridge by Rich Wallace
Hard book to get into but totally worth it: That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis
Best short stories: The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios by Yann Martel and The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
II. Characters
Most different character: tie between Stargirl Carraway of Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli and Quintana of Froi of the Exiles and Quintana of Charyn by Melina Marchetta
Best boyfriend: three-way tie between Augustus Waters (The Fault in Our Stars), Jonah Griggs (Jellicoe Road), and Will Trombal (Saving Francesca)
Most chilling: Mr. Loomis in Z for Zachariah
Best best friends: Taylor and Raffy in Jellicoe Road and Harry, Ron, and Hermione in Harry Potter
Best animal character: Charlotte A. Cavatica in Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
Best narrator: Death in The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Sweetest child: Eva in Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Most changed character: Jean Valjean in Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Character I want to be friends with: Rae in Rosie by Anne Lamott
Character I love to hate: Dolores Umbridge in HP & the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
Character I just plain hate: Simon Price in The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
Character you want to live next door to: Sam Hamilton in East of Eden by John Steinbeck and Chaz Santangelo in Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
III. Scenes
Best theological discussion in fiction: a large portion of Perelandra by C.S. Lewis and East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Most intense scene: Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
Steamiest scene: Jace and Clary, all the time, but especially in City of Glass and City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare
Best sexual tension: Perry and Aria while he teaches her how to tell if berries are poisonous (yes, really!) in Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi
Sweetest: when Eleanor and Park hold hands for the first time in Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
Most disturbing: you’ll know it when you read it in Unwind by Neal Shusterman (I thought I was going to throw up)
Most fascinating conversation in the face of great danger: walking through the Red Bull’s lair in The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle
Best opening line: “What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?” in Love Story by Erich Segal
Biggest cliffhanger: Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta
Castle
CASTLE
I am a child, rebirthed into ruin,
remembering thrills and thrones
which whisper your once-glorious name.
My Mixed Feelings about Book Series
I have complicated feelings regarding book series.
On the one hand, I dislike them. They seem like an opportunity to milk a cash cow, and they require such a huge investment on the reader’s behalf. There is something unsatisfying about a to-be-continued ending. I also wonder if the author wasn’t able to come up with any new, fresh ideas.
On the other hand, Harry Potter. The Chronicles of Narnia. The Lumatere Chronicles.
On a THIRD hand (I know, I know), it’s fun to be with beloved characters all over again.
On a fourth hand (get over it), if you really love-love-LOVED a book, it’s really hard for future books to compete. Agree?
I don’t know. If I see a book that looks good to me and then I see behind it “(Series Name, #1),” I think, Oh please no. And I usually skip it. I suppose that, in the end, it all comes down to the quality of writing, the belovedness of the characters, and the value of the story. Which is why Narnia will last the test of time and– as a guess– the Pretty Little Liars series will not.
Do you like book series? Why or why not?
a series I have NO desire to read
JACKIE LEA SOMMERS 